Things Change
by Supergeek-110
Summary: Sir Handel and Peter Sam have wildly different reactions to being swept up and put onto the Skarloey railway. Peter Sam sees it as a new opportunity, but Sir Handel thinks it was useless and is angry about how unused to everything he is. But both brothers must learn that sometimes, Things Change. (Leave a review and tell me what you think)
1. Brothers

Skarloey and Rheneas were up early, waiting for the new engines to arrive. Two new engines had been ordered and sent to the railway to assist the older engines, and the pair couldn't wait to meet the newcomers. Skarloey was sitting quietly, waiting as the clock ticked onwards, but Rheneas had begun to grow a bit impatient.

"Oh, where could they be Skarloey? They were supposed to be here ages ago!" Rheneas huffed out loud. Skarloey couldn't help but laugh a bit.

"Patience, Rheneas, patience. It's still early, and they'll be here in due time. You're just getting excited."

"Oh, I know, I know," Rheneas said, laughing along. "We just need the help."

"Which is why the new engines were ordered in the first place, Rheneas. They'll make the workload much lighter." Skarloey smiled, but his face grew a little grim. "But, do keep in mind to be polite to them, I've heard tell that their old railway closed down recently. And that can be a troubling topic for any engine."

"Oh, my," Rheneas gasped. "And when they're so young, too."

"Yes," Said Skarloey, nodding solemnly. "But we'll make sure to make them feel as welcome as we can."

Rheneas smiled, and nodded in agreement.

Currently, Sir Handel and Peter Sam were moving steadily down the line. Peter Sam was trying to enjoy himself, and was admiring the view along the way. His brother, Sir Handel, on the other hand, was not. Sir Handel's face was affixed with what seemed like a permanent scowl, and had practically refused to speak since the brothers had left their old railway. Peter Sam had begun to grow bored by the almost constant silence, and tried to get Sir Handel's attention.

"It's quite the beautiful view, isn't it?" Peter Sam said aloud. He shot a quick glance at Sir Handel, who audibly scoffed and snorted.

"Beautiful, is it?" Sir Handel huffed. Peter Sam thought it felt nice to hear his voice for the first time in ages. "Looks like rocks and trees to me. No different than any other line, Stuart!" Sir Handel spat, his words almost venomous. Peter Sam sighed. His plan had backfired.

"My name is Peter Sam, now, you know that—" Peter Sam insisted.

"I'm not calling you that." Sir Handel interrupted indignantly. Peter Sam sighed, and let out a groan.

"Sir Handel, for once in your life could you just _try_ to have a positive attitude?" Peter Sam begged.

"_Falcon._" Sir Handel hissed, refusing to go by his new name. He pretended to think for a moment. "And, hmm, let me see, if our old line reopens and we get to go home where we _belong_, then yes. I could." Sir Handel replied in a snarky tone, as what could only be described as a smirk smudged his face. Peter Sam let out a mix of a groan and a growl.

"At the very least, could you be polite to these new engines? I want to set a good impression. I've heard they're famous for goodness sake!" Peter Sam said. "I swear, ever since we left you've just been a stubborn, condescending, whiny, ungrateful—"

Knowing Peter Sam was just going to go into a long lecture and rant about Sir Handel's attitude as of late, Sir Handel tuned him out and was left alone with his own thoughts. Sure, on the outside he simply seemed…snarky, to say the least, but on the inside, he was a giant mess.

He was angry, often seething over the fact so much had changed in his life without anyone ever asking him if he even wanted anything to change! But he was also very often sad, sometimes brooding, and staying alone by himself away from everyone he knew for hours at a time, wanting to be left alone but also wanting someone to find him and ask him if he was alright. He was two conflicting sides of a coin. He wanted Peter Sam to shut up and leave him alone, but he also wanted Peter Sam to talk with him like they used to, and tell him that everything was going to be alright, he was angry at the world, and blamed it for all of his problems, but he also blamed himself, constantly surrounded in a shroud of guilt clinging to him like a disease.

But most of all, Sir Handel just wanted to stop feeling like the whole world hated him.


	2. Don't be rude

Just as Skarloey and Rheneas were beginning to grow bored, they heard two whistles blast and echo off in the distance.

"Oh! That'll be them!" Rheneas said. "They're here!"

Both engines looked onwards and watched as two engines came bustling round the bend. One appeared older than the other. The younger one looked excited and chipper, the older one did not. Rheneas shot a quick glance at Skarloey, Skarloey nodded.

"Erm, uh, hello!" Rheneas said. "You must be the new engines."

"Um, hello!" The younger engine stammered. "Y-Yes! We are. Um, would you two happen to be Skarloey and Rheneas?"

"We are." Said Skarloey. "I'm Skarloey, and this is Rheneas." Rheneas smiled.

"What would your names be?" Rheneas asked.

"I'm Peter Sam, and this is my brother Sir Handel." Peter Sam introduced himself. Sir Handel huffed.

"_Stuart and Falcon…_" Sir Handel mumbled under his breath.

"_Shut up,_" Peter Sam whispered back. Sir Handel snorted and ignored him. Skarloey gave Rheneas a confused glance, Rheneas didn't have anything to say. Skarloey cleared his throat, and regained his composure.

"Well, Peter Sam and Sir Handel, follow us, we'll take you to the sheds." Peter Sam nodded, trying to smile. Sir Handel didn't even try. The engines followed Skarloey and Rheneas to the sheds. Peter Sam smiled. They looked very cozy and comfortable, even if they did look different than the sheds on his old railway. Sir Handel on the other hand, huffed indignantly beside him.

"What a small shed!" He complained. "Come on, Stuart, we're too good for this old shack!"

Peter Sam's smile disappeared and felt his joy float away from him.

"Well, _I _think they're nice. And I think that they'll do just fine." Peter Sam argued, trying to stay calm.

"Oh, please," Sir Handel mumbled. "What, you trying to suck up to the old hunk of rubbish?" Peter Sam was humiliated, Skarloey looked offended.

"Shh! Sir Handel! Don't be rude." Peter Sam hissed, bumping his brother. He blushed and gulped nervously. He looked to Skarloey, eyes glazed with shame. "I-I'm sorry about that, S-Sir Handel's in a bit of a bad mood right now, b-but he's quite nice! Really," Peter Sam muttered, turning redder. Skarloey felt bad for the little green engine. Rheneas nodded solemnly.

"Erm, Skarloey, how about you show Sir Handel around, and I'll take Peter Sam." Rheneas suggested.

"I think that's a good idea," Skarloey whispered, nodding a bit. "Come along, Sir Handel," As his brother puffed away, Peter Sam swore he heard him mumbling something along the lines of 'rickety old crockpot' under his breath. Peter Sam only turned redder. Once they were both out of hearing range, Rheneas turned to Peter Sam.

"What's up with your brother?" Rheneas asked. Peter Sam gulped.

"Oh, S-Sir Handel? He's fine, it-it's just been a hard time for the both of us. He, uh, isn't exactly taking it too well. He-He just gets into one of his moods sometimes, that's all. H-He'll get over it." Peter Sam said. "_Eventually._" He mumbled, looking ashamed. Rheneas felt bad for him.

"I don't get it, you're going through the same things as he is but you aren't acting like that." Rheneas said. "That, and you have to constantly keep him in check from what I've seen. Are you sure you're okay?" Something changed in Peter Sam's eyes.

"Uh…Um, yeah, y-yeah, I'm fine," He mumbled, looking anything but. He sniveled quietly. "It's nothing, l-let's just go."

Rheneas wanted to ask more, but silenced himself. Questions could wait. For now, he'd just show this poor little engine around.


	3. Glass Half Empty

Meanwhile, Skarloey was steadily moving down the line, hearing Sir Handel mutter and mope behind him. It was hard to make out most of it, but what parts he could hear tended to be rude comments directly aimed at him. Skarloey sighed. He found it astonishing how these engines were brothers and yet they were so different from each other. Sir Handel huffed behind him and Skarloey glanced back.

"Something on your mind?" Skarloey asked. Sir Handel jumped a bit.

"N-No! It's nothing. What do you want?" Sir Handel quickly recovered, refusing to look Skarloey in the eye.

"I'm starting to wonder how you're in such a bad mood while your brother seems fine with everything." Skarloey said. "If that's what you wanted to know." Sir Handel rolled his eyes.

"My brother is naïve and oblivious is what you mean. He ignores everything that bothers him and pretends it doesn't exist instead of doing something about it like I do. You'd see, if he'd open his eyes for once he'd be just like me. I don't ignore everything and live in some fantasy world. I live in the real world, and in the real world, it's not a happy place." Sir Handel said.

"What makes you think that?"

"What makes me think that? Everything does, my railway got sold off! Now I'm stuck in this dump, because the universe seems to hate me for some reason." Sir Handel hissed. "I got my own name changed for goodness sake."

"What's so bad about the name Sir Handel? I think it's fine."

"Well, I don't. My name is Falcon and I'm not going by anything but it. I don't know why Stuart's fine with his new name. I don't get it. Every time I call him Stuart he insists it's Peter Sam. Guess he just fits the mold here better than I do. I don't belong here at all." Sir Handel mumbled. Skarloey didn't say anything for a bit, and it was very quiet. Finally, Skarloey took a breath and began to speak.

"Well, _Falcon,_ I think you'd find you'd feel a lot more like you belonged if you tried to see the positive side of things. Nothing will go well if you never let it go well for you. I think you'll soon find that being in a bitter mood all the time makes things a lot less enjoyable for you. You'll never feel like you fit in if you don't let yourself come in in the first place. I've met engines like you before, and they lived miserable lives until they finally started to try and see the good in what they found to be bad situations." Skarloey said. "I know you don't want to, but I honestly think you should try to do that. I think it'd help you a lot." Sir Handel glanced up at the old engine, but didn't say anything. Sir Handel sighed and just stared down at the track. Skarloey knew he wasn't going to get anything more out of the blue engine, and said nothing more.

Skarloey just hoped that Sir Handel would try and take his advice. It wasn't very nice to watch someone be miserable all the time and not be able to do anything about it.


	4. Bad Day

Sir Handel didn't sleep well at all that night. He wasn't used to anything, and it made it practically impossible to sleep. He tried for hours, only growing more frustrated as he watched everyone around him fall asleep and the horizon grower blacker and blacker, like there was an uncapped pen in the sky. He eyed Peter Sam, who was sleeping peacefully, and huffed to himself.

"Oh, of course Stuart falls asleep easily. Lucky him." Sir Handel scoffed. He yawned and blinked his eyes. He was exhausted, but sleep still refused to come to him, frustratingly enough. He growled in annoyance and stared at the sky. Pointing out stars wouldn't help him like it tended to help his brother, he'd already tried. Sir Handel then had an idea. If he couldn't sleep here because it was too unlike his old sheds, he'd just close his eyes and pretend he was in his old sheds, and that Skarloey and Rheneas weren't there at all. Sir Handel shut his eyes tightly and thought as hard as he could.

He was _not _in the bothersome, small, old shack on the Skarloey Railway, he was on his old railway with his old sheds, and Skarloey and Rheneas weren't there.

Sir Handel yawned again, and his exhaustion was beginning to outweigh his frustration and he was getting closer to finally falling asleep.

Peter Sam was there, and so was Duke. It was just the three of them, on their railway in their sheds like they should be, not whisked away to some other railway because it closed down. Everything was right. Everything was normal.

Without realizing, Sir Handel slipped fast asleep at last, and slept without stirring until that morning. The next morning, Sir Handel was tired, and grouchy, and only running on a few hours of sleep. His fireman arrived to light his fire.

"Alright, Sir Handel, time to get you ready for work." The fireman said, starting a blaze in Sir Handel's firebox. Sir Handel scoffed loudly.

"I'm tired! Let Peter Sam go," Sir Handel complained. "He loves it here…he'd love this too." He muttered to himself. Peter Sam didn't say anything.

"Nope, you're going first, Sir Handel. Manager's orders." Said the fireman, beginning to shovel in coal. Sir Handel scowled, but didn't say another word about it. He soon set off to collect his coaches for his passenger run. Sir Handel was in for quite the surprise when he arrived at the yard and saw the look of his new coaches. They didn't look anything like the ones on his old railway.

Sir Handel spluttered indignantly, "What next?! Th-These aren't coaches! They're-They're cattle-cars!" He cried. The coaches were most offended by this.

"What a horrid little engine!" They gasped. "How rude of him! Why, he's got no manners at all!" Sir Handel heard them, but he didn't much care.

"This isn't what I'm used to at all," He whispered to himself, grumpily collecting his coaches before setting off. He pulled into the station just as Gordon did. Sir Handel looked up at the bigger engine.

"Hello," He said. "Who are you?" Gordon looked down at the unfamiliar engine.

"I'm Gordon. Who are _you?_" Gordon said.

"I'm Sir Handel," Sir Handel said, deciding that he might as well use his new name to avoid confusion. He thought a moment, and remembered something. "Hey, I've heard of you, you're an express engine! So am I, but I'm used to new coaches, not these _cattle-cars._" Sir Handel huffed. Gordon looked surprised, but didn't get a chance to say anything before the little engine was chattering again. "Do you have new coaches? I see you do! We must have a chat sometime, sorry I can't stay longer, we've got to keep time, after all." And at that, the little engine was off. Gordon was utterly speechless, and couldn't even think of a single word to say.

Steam rose as Sir Handel huffed along unhappily down the line. He was only crosser yet when they reached the last station. Sir Handel wanted to rest for a while, but his driver didn't agree.

"Alright, Sir Handel, we'll leave the coaches here for now, and run by the quarry. There are some cars we need to pick up."

"_Cars?!_" Sir Handel almost shrieked. "Cars!? I-I-I won't! So-So there!" He huffed, going red in the face. Before his driver could respond, Sir Handel bucketed ahead indignantly, hitting an odd bit of track and derailing himself. Sir Handel's driver was surprised.

"Sir Handel!" His driver gasped.

"Hmph!" Sir Handel huffed. "I told you!" His driver didn't say another word, but didn't look pleased at all with Sir Handel's outburst. He went red and walked away to fetch help before he got anymore upset. Sir Handel didn't say a word. But, after sitting off the rails for a while, he was beginning to regret reacting so strongly, and began to feel rather silly. At last, Peter Sam arrived with workmen to come rescue him. Just when Sir Handel didn't think things could possibly get any worse. Someone else climbed down. It was Sir Topham Hatt. Sir Handel recognized him at once and gulped. Sir Topham Hatt's message was blunt and short.

"I shall speak with you later." He said, looking quite displeased. Sir Handel didn't want later to come after that. Peter Sam looked at his brother disappointedly before he set off with Sir Topham Hatt and the workmen. Sir Handel wasn't feeling angry at this point, just even more upset then he had been already. Sir Handel was back on the rails before long, and slowly crawled back to the sheds, where he found Sir Topham Hatt waiting for him. Sir Handel bit his lip.

"I'm not happy with the recklessness and chaos you caused today, and you'll have to be punished." Sir Topham Hatt said.

"A-And what's that, Sir?" Sir Handel stuttered.

"I'm hoping that I'll be able to trust you to be responsible the next time you leave this shed." Sir Topham Hatt said, nodding to the shed behind him. Sir Handel felt the color drain from his face, and his boiler grow tight. He now felt rather sick.

"S-Sir, please, I-I-I—" Sir Handel stammered nervously.

"_Now,_ Sir Handel." Sir Topham Hatt ordered. Sir Handel felt even sicker, and slowly backed into the sheds. His pistons quaked and his pipes felt like they were tying themselves into many knots. Sir Topham Hatt left, and Sir Handel felt as sick as ever. He felt hot tears burn in the corner of his eyes, and gasped out a sob without meaning to.

"Today was awful!" He wailed to himself, beginning to cry. "I hate this railway!"


End file.
